Not all blog posts have to be authored from your computer. The WordPress app for Android and iOS provides similar features to the desktop version and allows you to post from virtually anywhere. With the ubiquitous use of smart phones there is nothing getting in the way of blogging for your business. You never know when a post will be just what your next customer needed to hear.
More and more, businesses are seeing the vision of moving away from a business built on competition and hierarchy to a business that uses collaboration to fuel and capture creativity.
Working on the premise that great minds working together have the ability to accomplish great things and that the sum of their parts are worth more than just the individual, we start to see that logically, this makes perfect sense.
When people feel free to express their ambitions, their ideas and opinions, they continually contribute because they see that they are an important part of the process. Whereas in a hierarchy situation, it is more likely that innovations and ideas are not welcome unless you hold a certain title or standing in the company.
We all have something authentic and unique to contribute and eventually, we may even begin to figure out what that is. Then, the goal becomes to find a place where your contribution means something, providing value to a workplace and a team and at the same time, building value within yourself.
A little over 3 months ago, I decided to give CrossFit a try. My friend John had been encouraging me for some time to join his home-based CrossFit group and finally after a few adult beverages at a cocktail party I relented and agreed to show up at 6am Monday morning. I’ve been a regular ever since.
But, I’m not going to talk about the fitness program (which is fantastic). What I want to share with you is the business philosophy of CrossFit founder Greg Glassman. A few weeks ago I stumbled across this 12 minute video which has some truly profound business insights. The cool thing is that this guy didn’t set out to build a billion dollar business, or graduate from business school. If he had, he most likely would have failed in his real mission.
Pursuing Excellence
According to Glassman his goal when starting out was to build the “best training program on earth”. He was so “successful” that he was fired by every gym in Santa Cruz due to taking the other trainer’s clients. After being let go by the last gym one of his clients, who ran a Jiu-Jitsu studio, offered him 150 square feet to start his own gym, telling him, “they hate you because you’re the best”. That was in 2000.
He soon outgrew the space and decided to rent a 1250 square foot building. Within 4-5 months he had an over-crowding issue and was faced with having to make real business decisions. With that early success, he began to focus on money and not on making the program better.
At this pivotal moment, Glassman realized that what fed the success of CrossFit was the pursuit of excellence. As he puts it,
Excellence is obvious to everyone. It’s just that easy.
Today CrossFit is a worldwide phenomenon with over 7000 affiliate gyms around the globe.
Creating Value
As a small business owner it’s easy to be more concerned with making money than creating value. At around the 4-minute mark in the video, Glassman goes to the white board to beautifully illustrate his point about pursuing excellence first.
He closes the talk with these thoughts:
Money is the result of doing things right. Money is essential to run a business, but it’s not why you run a business or what makes it grow. Businesses grow on dreams. Trying to make money is no way to grow a business.”
Watch the video, it’s well worth 12 minutes of your time. Let us know what you think. Agree or disagree?
The most amazing thing about the internet is the access it gives us to people and information. From my office in Washougal, Washington, I can listen to some of the smartest people on the planet share their stories. I can engage with people I’ve never met and access an almost unlimited amount of information.
Of the endless possibilities, one of my favorite resources is the Stanford University Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Series. Since 2005, I’ve listened to their weekly podcast (while school is in session) and am consistently impressed by the diversity and quality of speakers they are able to attract. One week it could be the CEO of an up and coming tech company, and then be followed by the leader of a non-profit fund. Past speakers include people like Mark Zuckerberg in 2007 (back when it was still called ‘The Facebook’ and they had just launched their photo sharing feature), Steve Young (the former San Francisco 49’s quarterback), Evan Williams (the co-founder of Twitter…before he co-founded Twitter), and William McDonough (Architect, author, and one of Time Magazine’s ‘Hero for the Planet’), among many others.
Over the years, I’ve listened to countless hours of brilliant insight because of this series; I’ve listened to talks while running, on the way to work, road trips, and in lieu of television or radio.
Interestingly, the podcasts I’ve enjoyed the least (you can still learn something) have been from venture capitalists, politicians, and really ‘successful’ CEO’s. There’s something off-putting (to me) about a canned speech or those lacking authenticity. My favorite talks were by the speakers who revealed their shortcomings and how they learned from adversity; the ones that offered experience and thought process over instruction.
At the risk of excluding many worthy talks, in no particular order I offer nine of my favorite talks for your consideration. Give them a listen and let me know what you think.
William Mcdonough
Jensen Huang
Guy Kawasaki
Tom Kelly
Jack Dorsey
DHH
Shai Agassi
Vinod Khosla
Tim O’Reilly
I’m looking forward to upcoming talk by Sal Khan and learning more about what he’s doing at the Khan Academy, where their mission is to provide a world-class education for anyone anywhere.
I collect quotes, so I anticipated selecting a single favorite might be more difficult than it turned out to be. In order to narrow the range of initial possibilities from my spreadsheet, I wanted to select a quote that applied to a broad range of circumstances. As soon as I set that one criteria in my mind…I knew immediately what my quote was.
Ignorance is voluntary misfortune.
Short and sweet.
Misfortune is defined as simply being bad luck, and why should we suffer unnecessary misfortune as a result of self imposed ignorance? This quote reminds us that through our own efforts to become more informed, we can avoid, or at least mitigate bad things from happening.
The implication is that we have a choice. Ignorance or understanding. Through education (not to be confused with schooling, but that’s another post) we can turn what may have been voluntary misfortune into opportunity. Or, as Seneca the Younger put it:
Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity.
This is my favorite quote because it reminds me of how important being informed is. Ignorance may be bliss for a while, but it can also end in misfortune.
What is your favorite quote? Please share it in the comments.
Not all blog posts have to be authored from your computer. The WordPress app for Android and iOS provides similar features to the desktop version and allows you to post from virtually anywhere. With the ubiquitous use of smart phones there is nothing getting in the way of blogging for your business. You never know when a post will be just what your next customer needed to hear.
Collaborative Business
